So Proud

My oldest son, intent on becoming a firefighter, worked exceedingly hard to make it a reality. When he graduated from the fire academy, we were so proud of him. And I was really happy to find that much of the experience was documented in photos and videos! The picture of my son and a fellow recruit giving thumbs up during tower drills is one of my favorites.

I started with a basic grid design and built up layers using additional papers and embellishments. The chalkboard quote, "He believed he could, so he did" originally read "she" not "he", but a black marker was an easy remedy! There were so many other great quotes and phrases, perfect for my page: "You are brave", Do what you love", "Just be happy", "Okie dokie":

Everything here is from Scraptastic's Good Day Sunshine kit and add-on. I particularly love the black lettering. Using the both the positives and negatives adds a fun twist to my title:

I stuck with only yellow, black and white papers from kit, and I love the bold and happy look! In fact, I love it so much so, that I've completed two more pages using the very same color combo. Check back tomorrow for one of those pages. :)

Must Have Been The Wings!

I've gotten a bit behind in getting my pages to my blog...ooops! The one below was featured on the Scraptastic blog last week, but it's one of my favorites, and I have to share it. What I really love about this kind of page is that it takes very little planning. I had an idea and simply dove in! All these scraps were hanging around my desk, and instead of sorting and storing, or throwing them away, I decided to put them to use as little flags on a trio of banners running from one side of the page to the other.

The only problem with not planning, was that I couldn't find a place that I liked for my title. A little one here or a large one there...nope, they just didn't work. The solution: no title...or at least no obvious title. In my mind, the title is those last few words of my journaling: Must Have Been The Wings! No need to repeat it elsewhere on the page, right?!

The photo was taken as my son and I enjoyed lunch at Buffalo Wild Wings. We had been at a swim meet in Baton Rouge, and were trying to bide our time between prelims finals. He had a great morning swim, besting his time in the 100 fly. When we returned to the pool later that afternoon, he dropped 4 more seconds when he swam the event again. It was an awesome day, and I journaled about it in looping lines right above each banner.

Yep, it must have been the wings. It does make perfect sense since he was swimming butterfly!

Supplies from the Scraptastic Store: Patterned paper: (Gossamer Blue On My Desk), (Dear Lizzy Serendipity), (Pebbles Happy Day), (Echo Park Creative Agenda); Embellishments: (Jillibean Soup Funny Notebook Tags), (Freckled Fawn Retro Star Clips).

Loving The Cut Files

I love that cut files have become a Scraptastic kit staple, and I can't wait to see what's in store each month. This heart design was created for February's It Takes Two kit. But I found it to be so pretty with the soft pastel papers from the Counting Stars kit, and as this was my fourth page with the kit, it was oh so perfect for using up scraps.

The photos above are my engagement proofs, rescued, scanned and reprinted. It seemed to be tradition back then for the local newspapers to announce engagements with a photo of the bride-to-be. I had a photographer take my picture, and one was chosen. This was back before digital, so I had a grand total of four taken! 

I added a couple of leaf clusters at the top of the heart, along with watercolored flowers from the kit, using foam dots to pop the flowers off the page.

Along one edge of the heart, a scattering of enamel dots echo the soft colors of the page. Finally I brought in a bit of gold by adding a tag, embossed vellum, and doily, great for dressing up those old black and white photos.

Shave Party

I shared the following page a couple of days ago on the Scraptastic blog. The picture is from a school swim team gathering. The boys and their families were getting together for Mass and a big pot luck dinner, a send-off for the ones who would be representing the school at the state swim meet that weekend. The evening wasn't complete without the traditional head-shaving, originally intended as a time-shaving measure, but really more about team spirit.

School rules prohibited a true shave, and set limits on the size of the blade. Still, for some of these boys, the cut was extreme! For Kevin, not so much. Here are the freshmen swimmers:

To create this page, I used several beautiful papers from the One Way Ticket collection by Studio Tekturek, a company that is relatively new to the scrapbooking scene. The celestial print and the paper airplane pattern were inspiration for the folded paper plane embellishment, burlap stars and blue splattered background.

Here are a couple of close-ups:

Blue stitching winds its way from top to bottom, connecting the journal card to the two-color, mixed font title:

The phrase on the Jillibean Soup tag was so appropriate!

SUPPLIES: Patterned paper and flair badge: (Studio Tekturek One Way Ticket Collection) (Jillibean Soup cards); Chipboard alphabets: (Bella Blvd. Chipboard Alphabet, Pickle Juice) (Bella Blvd. Chipboard Alphabet, Blueberry); Embellishments: (Simple Stories Burlap Stars), baker's twine, enamel dots, mist.